The standard CEO spends their time attending conferences, strategizing with their board, and, within the case of the boss of semiconductor big ASML, batting off questions on the right way to get to the place he’s.
It’s an comprehensible question. As CEO of the Fortune 500 Europe lithography group, Christophe Fouquet is accountable for one of the crucial strategically essential firms on this planet. His €3.5 million ($3.6 million) pay packet final yr, and extra in accrued inventory choices, doesn’t mood the envy both.
However talking to Norges Financial institution Funding Administration CEO Nicolai Tangen on his In Good Firm podcast, Fouquet indicated the query stands out as a constant shortcoming amongst bold kids.
“I see too many young people who come to see me, and they want to be CEO, and they ask me ‘how do we become CEO?’ And I try to explain to them in the nicest possible way that this is almost an absurd question,” mentioned Fouquet.
“This isn’t the fitting query. The fitting query is what am I going to do tomorrow that actually will get me excited, that actually brings one of the best out of me?
“Because if you go and do that every day, there may be a chance you become CEO—most probably a bigger chance that you don’t—but you will equally end up doing something that brings you joy, energy, and most importantly brings that to the people around you.”
Fouquet, who says he by no means harbored ambitions for the C-Suite in his early years, says this could lengthen to the themes younger individuals select to review at college, arguing it’s extra essential to do one thing you get pleasure from than taking a career-focused strategy.
The ASML CEO says this strategy to profession growth will help section development into two elements, centered on gaining affect earlier than studying the right way to use it.
“I think the first part of your career is about proving yourself, I truly believe that,” mentioned Fouquet, including he realized this a part of his life had concluded when he took cost of a product unit at ASML greater than a decade in the past.
“And then you look forward, you say, okay, what’s next… what can I do to help and where is the place where I can do something that matters?”
Fouquet’s function has remodeled throughout his time at ASML. At $230 billion, the group is value orders of magnitude greater than when he joined the corporate in 2008.
Shares within the group ballooned following the COVID-19 pandemic, first throughout a broad enhance in demand for tech shares and once more in the course of the AI increase.
The corporate provides its lithography machines to the world’s largest firms, together with Nvidia, which permits the manufacturing of superior semiconductors utilized in AI purposes.
As a key a part of the worldwide provide chain, Foquest’s function is just prone to develop in significance.
Editor’s observe: A model of this text first appeared on Fortune.com on February 12, 2025.
This story was initially featured on Fortune.com
